imagination | Motherhood Is An Art

On Mondays, my 2^nd grade daughter, Iris, has library at school. They are allowed to pick out two books and bring them home.

Our house is filled with children’s books. There are books in all of my children’s rooms. There are books in the living room, the attic crawl space I turned into a play area, our van and our basement holds seven shelves that our lined with children’s books. My best guess is that we own over 500 books for the kids.

If this wasn’t enough we also go to the public library every week, and pick out 15 more books.

I have always kept a close eye on the borrowed library books from school. They can be read and then immediately returned to the counter in the kitchen where I keep their daily school folders and papers that need to be signed.

This year I have two children in school so this pile is getting larger. I told Iris last week that now that she is in 2^nd grade she is responsible for her library books from school and to keep them in her room.

This past Monday, while Iris was getting ready for school, I reminded her it was library day.

SHE COULD NOT FIND ONE OF HER LIBRARY BOOKS!

We searched frantically for 10 minutes before she had to leave but came up empty handed.

When Iris came home from school, she spent the rest of the afternoon scouring the house for it. She was still empty handed.

She shrugged her shoulders, gave up and said she had the perfect solution.

I have mentioned in a previous post, She Love Unicorns and Other Fancy Stuff that Iris has claimed the Tooth Fairy has her friend and pen pal.

Iris’s solution to her missing library book was to put it in the Tooth Fairy’s hands by writing her a note requesting her to find it.

To Tooth Fairy
From Iris
Dear Tooth Fairy,
Can you find Smile A Lot for me? Can you at least find it or return it on Monday or tomorrow? See you! Just tell me if you couldn’t find it.

I felt bad for the Tooth Fairy. She already has a huge workload of collecting millions of kids’ teeth and hauling a sack full of money around the world every night; and here my daughter now wants her to find a missing library book.

The Tooth Fairy collected her note Monday night from my daughter’s “tooth fairy pillow” and began to search relentlessly all day Tuesday and Wednesday. I heard her jingling around downstairs going through EVERY bookshelf, pulling out every book. She scoped out all of the children’s rooms. She looked under beds, couches and chairs. She crammed her tiny body in every bag, box and nook she could find. The book is nowhere. I’m afraid the Tooth Fairy may have to call the public library and see if it accidentally got returned there.

I have a feeling the Tooth Fairy is exhausted with all of this extra work placed on her these past few days.

The Tooth Fairy was nice enough to take the time and write back to Iris though!

My 7 year old daughter, Iris, has always believed in magic and all things whimsical. She has held a deep grasp for empathy since she was a toddler and always seemed to have a firm but unexplained understanding of how the world worked.

When Iris was 2 ½ years old, we went to visit my husband’s family in Albuquerque, NM. My husband’s father had passed away 11 years earlier. We had only prior to this showed Iris a picture of her deceased grandpa and told her, “That’s your Papa Bency.” We did not tell her he was gone or even bring him up when we went to see my husband’s mom. When we arrived in Albuquerque at Grandma Ramona’s house, Iris immediately said, “Papa Bency is here.” We all eyed each other quizzically, got goose bumps and shrugged our shoulders.

As the week long visit went on, we noticed Iris constantly talking to herself. We asked who she was talking to and it was always…”Papa Bency”. One day we heard the front door creak, no one was there and Iris said, “Papa Bency just got here for the party.” We did indeed have a party that night with 40-50 family members! As our trip came to an end, we asked Iris what her favorite part of the vacation had been. We thought for sure she was going to say the aquarium visit or playing with one of her 25 cousins but her response was simple and matter of fact…”playing with Papa Bency.”

We haven’t had a chance to travel back to Albuquerque since then, and Papa Bency never “appeared” at our house.

Iris and I at the Albuquerque aquarium when she was 2 1/2

When Iris turned 3 years old, she had two steadfast friends join her life. Lydia and Mango were her imaginary friends. They occasionally joined us at the dinner table but mainly stayed up in the attic crawl space I converted into a play area for Iris. The stories Iris told me about them were so detailed. She described what they wore; how they did their hair; what they talked about and was even sad when one of them got sick and couldn’t play one day. The stories were so believable it made me almost want to check the crawl space a few times to confirm they were only imaginary. When Iris was 4 years old she came to me very sad. She said, “Lydia and Mango have died. They were in a terrible accident.” Iris’s only outside influences were Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer. We had never talked about death or “terrible accidents.” Unfortunately, Lydia and Mango never joined us at the dinner table again.

Iris playing in the hide out with her brother when she was 3 1/2

In the past two years, Iris has acquired a strong belief in unicorns and two more new friends. Iris knows not everyone believes in unicorns but it does not deter her in any way. She scoffs at their disbelief and is on the constant search for these beautiful beasts to prove everyone wrong. She is currently saving all of her money to afford a trip to the magical forest where she believes they all reside. Her new friends are the Bedtime Fairy and the Tooth Fairy. They are actually just pen pals as she actually has never seen them. She writes to them religiously and though the fairies are sometimes delayed in responding (mainly because they don’t know they have an awaiting letter), they ALWAYS answer back. Iris has learned through her correspondence what their nicknames are, their favorite colors, their birthdays, their ages and that the Tooth Fairy just got a boyfriend named Cupid.

Iris delights me, challenges me and makes my world amusing and fanciful. I miss the days of “Papa Bency, Lydia and Mango.” It seems those days were here and gone in a blink of the eye. I’m cherishing every minute I have watching her wonderment in unicorns and her “friendship” with the fairies. Before I know it, they may all be gone too.